Case Study: How Plate Intelligence Brings Big League Concepts to High School Hitters

For hitters looking to play at the next level, understanding why they’re making outs and how to fix them is critical. Plate Intelligence, Pelotero’s at bat tracking tool, allows players to track every pitch they face and analyze decisions around pitch recognition, swing timing, location, and contact quality.

Around the time we launched Plate Intelligence, we highlighted two D1 hitters that were using it consistently and how it helped elevate their game against high levels of competition. 

But what kind of impact would it have on even younger hitters? What would the benefit be to somebody still building their foundation?

To answer that, we interviewed high school hitter Miles Lankford - a consistent user of Plate Intelligence -  and his hitting coach Levi Scott of Big League Performance. 

Here is how the tool has impacted Miles’ development as a hitter and transformed the training process between player and coach. 

Personalizing Training with Game Data

Snippets from Miles' Pelotero athlete dashboard

Miles and Levi have been working together since Miles was in middle school. With the release of Plate Intelligence this past March, Levi encouraged Miles to start using it. The hope was that it would help Miles learn to process the game faster, and Levi could understand how he was making outs from afar.

“I started tracking because I wanted to figure out what was really going wrong when I wasn’t performing,” Miles explained. “It’s easy to review video and see the highlights. But by tracking over time, I could go deeper. I could see what kinds of pitches I hit well — and more importantly, where I was struggling.”

That attention to detail led to a major midseason adjustment. After struggling with off-speed pitches, Miles and Levi dug into the data and noticed a clear pattern — while he was recognizing breaking balls well, the swings on them were too often leading to misses and weak outs. 

Accuracy data by pitch type shown on an athlete profile in Pelotero

“He was missing over curveballs a lot,” Levi recalled. “He was seeing the pitch, but his swing path and timing weren’t matching it. So we used different weighted balls to simulate multiple breaking ball shapes. The goal was to build adjustability — not just to see the pitch, but to match the plane”. 

For Levi, this is just one example of how using Pelotero has transformed how he prepares his hitters for their cage work.

“Before, I’d spend the first ten minutes of a 30-minute session just trying to figure out what to focus on,” Levi said. “Now, I review the previous week’s at-bats, look at the data, and show up knowing exactly what needs to be addressed. The hitters come in knowing it too. That changes everything.”

Every good hitting coach knows that every player is going to have very different needs on any given day. Without Pelotero, it’s a challenge to pinpoint what those needs are. Now, the data is another tool Levi can use to confirm his and hitter’s instincts - or help them realize something they’ve been missing.

“We’re not just guessing anymore,” Levi said. “When MIles comes in it’s not emotional. He’s not reporting to me saying ‘I didn’t have a great day.’ It’s ‘I was late on fastballs in leverage counts 60% of the time’ or ‘I chased pitches in 2-strike counts over 50% of the time.’ It’s black and white.”

A Different Level

Part of the reason Levi was insistent that Miles start using Plate Intelligence was that he wanted to start having more conversations about the strategic parts of the game. 

“This tool has helped us move past just talking about mechanics and into talking about the mental side — about patterns, approaches, and being on time,” Levi said. “Miles has matured so much. His understanding of the game has gotten deeper. He’s not wish-hitting anymore. There’s a method to how he attacks each at-bat.”

“I used to just go up there and try to swing as hard as I could,” Miles says. “Now, I have an approach. I know my strengths. I know the zone better. I’m more on time. I square more balls up. I’m not just guessing anymore.”

Miles plans to continue tracking all summer. 

A recent HR from Miles

“This has helped me so much, I can’t imagine why I would stop,” he said.

Levi agrees that it has helped. “The guys who are using Plate Intelligence seriously are just at a different level. They show up to their lessons with a plan. They understand their process. That’s what separates the serious players from the ones who are just hoping it works out.”

Plate Intelligence is available for every Pelotero athlete. If you want to track your at bats, find a partner near you.